AL MVP watch

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As always, this month’s MVP Watch is based on how the voting might go if the season ended today, not a projection of how we think they’ll finish after the season (though we might just talk about that, too).

Why he’s here: Because this is the year Trout finally wins the MVP. Probably. He leads baseball in WAR (both versions) by a healthy margin. He should smash his career-highs in home runs (30), RBIs (97) and doubles (39), and the fact that his Angels are in position to earn a playoff spot won’t hurt, either.

Why he’s here: At this point, Abreu probably is the only hitter who can stop Trout from winning this award, and that would only happen with yet another absurd flurry of home runs from the rookie. In the 55 games since he returned from a short DL stint, he’s batting .344 with 16 homers, 44 RBIs and a 1.048 OPS.

Why he’s here: After three seasons of being a good-not-great part of Cleveland’s outfield, Brantley has been one of baseball’s best players in 2014. He’s already set his career high with 16 home runs (it was 10) and with his 13 stolen bases, he’ll probably beat that career mark this year, too (it’s 17). Might take a big playoff push from Cleveland to get him into the top five at the end of the year, though.

King Felix has been better than he was during his 2010 Cy Young season—much better, actually—but will that be enough to win an MVP? It just might. He has a 1.97 ERA, a 2.04 FIP and hasn’t allowed more than two runs in any of his past 15 starts, while going at least seven full innings all 15 times.

As noted last month, Donaldson’s low batting average (.244) will hurt his chances of getting first-place votes. But he’s outstanding defensively, has 23 homers and 78 RBIs and is in the AL’s top-three of WAR by FanGraphs (4.6) and Baseball-Reference (5.4).